In the coming week, we will send a detailed report of the City Council’s action to the different federal and state legislators.
As before, we reiterate that we will always support public and private investments, whether national or international, but only if the investments fall within a legal framework, and respect our country’s laws, regulations, and the well-being of the people of Ensenada.
It would be tedious and pointless to answer each and every one of the nonsensical statements that federal and state authorities have, in conjunction with Sempra Energy, issued about the Municipality of Ensenada. One thing that they have in common is that none are able to discredit our technical and legal arguments for the actions we have taken.
Sempra Energy and both state and federal officials have hurled a series of adjectives, epithets and misqualifications about the actions taken by the Ensenada City Council, creating a media circus so characteristic of those, who through lies and vacillation, try to obscure the truth. These invectives are aimed at the municipality and the actions—each fully backed by legal arguments—that it took to close the plant. They all have a common denominator in that they are full of malicious rumors lacking in any legal foundation and are incapable of countering our arguments which are based on laws and regulations.
None of these allegations refute the fact that the Land-Use Permit granted by the President of the Municipality of Tijuana, Jorge Antonio Catalán Sosa, was issued illegally, being in violation of the Urban Development Law and norms already in place at the time of issuance.
None of the bravado expressed by officials and spokespersons of Sempra Energy refutes the fact that the installation of the plant violates the Urban Development Law for the State of Baja California and goes against the Regional Program of Urban, Tourism and Ecological Development of the Tijuana-Rosarito-Ensenada Coastal Corridor (COCOTREN).
Their slanderous allegations do not negate that violations have been recognized by the authorities at all three levels of government within the Marine-Ecological Reform Program for the Pacific North published by SEMARNAT, where it is explicitly recognized that the Sempra Energy Plant violates the requirements of COCOTREN.
Which ever way you look at it, the attempt orchestrated by federal, state and Sempra Energy officials trys to ignore the judge’s provisional suspension of the plant (in which the Municipal Council’s actions were upheld), even though the text of the ruling clearly states “Without affecting the responsible authorities’ right to exercise their ability to inspect, monitor and verify the compliance with existing norms pertinent to the activity being developed, and in the case of any irregularity, to apply sanctions or take any corresponding legal action.”
Given this, the Ensenada Municipal Council is convinced that it has a legal responsibility, as well as the power granted by the Republic, to comply with the law and to make others comply with it.
And they believe that they have this power, regardless of those who today feel that their interests were damaged when they themselves failed to tell the truth and broke the law. Neither is their power negated by third parties who have resorted to conspiring with others who demonstrate zero interest in protecting the physical integrity of the people of Ensenada, much less in obeying the national and international laws that regulate the construction of Liquid Natural Gas Terminals.
On February 11, 2011, operation of the Liquid Natural Gas terminal, run by Sempra Energy's Costa Azul S. de R. L. de C.V., was temporarily closed down.
Personnel of Ensenada's City government observe the temporary closure of the Sempra Energy terminal.(Photo: www.ensenada.gob.mx)
Viewpoint: The closing of the Sempra Energy Plant
was properly and legally carried out
